He thought of Lan, of the red cord he’d bound for her, a promise and a wish that she’d miraculously granted him. That she could hold feelings for the likes of him had seemed too good to be true…but it hadn’t stopped him from dreaming of a future with her. A future free of persecution and war and suffering, where they could explore what this great wide world held for them. An ordinary life together, in which he could watch her skin wrinkle and her hair turn white.
But if he did not make this bargain, she would no longer even survive for them to have a chance at that.
His resolve firmed.
“Ten thousand souls first,”he said,“and then body. Then mind. And when I am ready, soul.”
Too long,hissed the Black Tortoise.I would not wait for you to complete the delivery of ten thousand souls to savor the taste of your flesh and thought.
They were at an impasse.
Zen waited, and at last, the Black Tortoise spoke again.
My counter: your gradual surrender. With each time that you use my power, with each soul that you deliver, I take more of your body. Then your mind. Last, your soul.
No, no,no,every part of him screamed against this. It was too soon; he would not have enough time.
This is my final offer, mortal,the Demon God warned, its anger sending tremors through the mountains.Take it or leaveit.
Zen closed his eyes, blotting out the image of hellish red ones. Instead, he thought of Lan. Of the village, the old landlady who had knelt before him. Of Skies’ End, his master bending to smell a sprig of snow camellia.
His life, in exchange for all theirs.
Well,Zen? The Black Tortoise’s words took on a mocking tone.Do we have a bargain?
In another world, a different life, he might have had different choices. Better choices. But in the one Zen had been born into, this was the only path left for him. The best path.
Zen opened his eyes and looked into the burning core of the demon.
“Yes,” he said. “We have a bargain.”
There is no peace without violence, no harmony without sacrifice, no unity without the loss of individuality.
—Dissertations of the First Emperor, Jin Dynasty, Cycle I, era of the Middle Kingdom
“Nai’nai. Grandmother. Please, we must leave.”
The village was roused, the stars blinking to life, and still, Zen had not returned. Lan had gone to search for him after banging on every door and window in the village. There had been no trace of him in their little room. The window had been left open, overlooking the slope of mountains through which wound a trail of silver as the Elantian army continued to climb. She thought she’d felt a stir of wind, the slightest weft to the flow of qì there, almost like the trail of a Seal just extinguished.
And the parchment with the transcribed star maps, Lan realized, was gone.
She remembered his expression before she’d left him: a sad fatalism, hope stuttering out in his eyes like the last flicker of a candle. Something took root in her stomach: a seed of doubt that he’d left her here to fend for the village herself. To die by herself.
“Gu’niang,” the old landlady murmured.Young lady.“Where would we go?”
“Anywhere,” Lan said desperately. “Out of the Elantian army’s way!”
The old woman sighed, and the dying candlelight carved deeper lines into her face. “Gu’niang, most of us have lived here our entire lives. Our roots are in this village, in this earth and soil itself. I was born here, I became a woman here and raised a family here, then watched them die here. When my time comes, I would wish that my old bones and soul are buried here as well.”
Lan looked at where the landlady sat, on a little wooden stool by her broken wooden table, mending a scrap of cloth. The realization came like a portrait snapping into place. The Elantians might burn down their towns and cities, destroy their books, and cut off their language, but the one thing Lan had counted on the Hin to hold on to had been hope. Hope was that fickle little fellow that had tided her through the cold nights and hungry dawns when the exhaustion of another day stretched long and bleak before her. Hope, she realized, was what Mama had given her the day she had whipped out her lute and felled an army of Elantians. Hope was what Mama had entrusted to Lan, in that Seal on her left wrist: a promise that this story was not over. That she held the brush to write its ending.
Yet this village, this landlady, had survived the Elantian assault physically, but their spirits had been broken.
Lan stood. The curves of the ocarina dug into her palm. “Nai’nai,” she said, “thank you for everything.”
The village was steeped in silence as she stepped out through the creaky wooden door, the very one she’d entered with Zen just a few nights ago, a lifetime past. Overhead, the moon lent a white light to the earth, yet storm clouds hadappeared in the west, sweeping over the clear skies like a curtain.
Lan walked down the dirt path to the pái’fang that marked the entrance to the village. A single path up, a single path down. No sign of Zen. She thought again of the strange sense she’d had in their room, the missing parchment that held the star maps to the Demon Gods.
